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You know the premise. Eight wealthy jet setters descend upon an ultra-luxury holiday resort with their rattling closets of skeletons in tow until one of them meets their end. We, in turn, spend hour-long stints piecing together the mosaic of Mike White's genius, mulling and mauling over potential suspects and victims, as the guest's turmoil and angst quakes. It could only be The White Lotus, which is back for its third season, without one of its mainstays: Jennifer Coolidge as the outré, quasi-spiritual, blindingly privileged, haphazardly lovable and achingly comedic heiress, Tanya McQuoid.
Newly-Confirmed Fourth Season
Much has been made of the current season of The White Lotus. It's been called raunchier than previous seasons, a slow burn, and uneven and disappointing. The series' creator and puppet master-in-chief Mike White — who conceived the idea for The White Lotus' third season while having a literal fever dream when he came down with bronchitis while location-scouting in Thailand — has managed to maintain the show's trademark hysteria, hypocrisies and hilarity, but this season is missing the punctuations of pure, comedic genius that Coolidge received vast virality for.
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Without the short, sharp bursts of Tanya's acidic comedy — 'These gays, they're trying to murder me!' — it feels like the series is failing to hinge on one character in the same way. Granted, The White Lotus is an ensemble cast, but season three's storyline, despite its simmering chaos, feels imperturbable, its energy more bumbling than breakneck. And it's for that reason that Coolidge's absence is felt so keenly.
The return of Greg-Gary, Tanya's ex-husband and potential killer, has retained some of the intrigue Tanya left in her wake, but without Tanya herself, the series feels nothing more than a souped-up murder mystery
We're wending our way through the season, but without the injections of comic relief that Coolidge provided so freely. Parker Posey as Victoria Ratliff is certainly a strong successor, but hers feels like a less pivotal role to the series. The return of Greg-Gary, Tanya's ex-husband and potential killer, has retained some of the intrigue Tanya left in her wake, but without Tanya herself, the series feels nothing more than a souped-up murder mystery (there is, of course, an argument to be made that it ostensibly has always been just that). Yet the internet is mourning the loss of the series' matriarch, too. Over the last seven days alone, searches for 'Tanya McQuoid' have spiked by 100%, per Google Trends.
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The White Lotus built its foundations on the bedrock of its characters being lost. This season, it feels like it's not only the cast that are lost, but White's raison d'etre too. The first two seasons of The White Lotus acerbically sliced through the cacophony of internet noise, asserting the series as a one-of-a-kind social satire that gripped its audience's attention firmly in its grasp. Make no mistake: the show is still bonkers and brilliant, but it's lacking the je ne sais quoi that Tanya cemented its reputation for. To resuscitate The White Lotus fortunes in its newly-confirmed fourth season, it needs another larger-than-life recurring character. It needs a Tanya McQuoid 2.0.
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Read the original article in ELLE UK.